Storyteller Evokes Ancient Knights, Villains to Carry On a Rich Chinese Tradition

Xiao Zhengyuan tells stories.

He carries on a tradition that goes back centuries in China, as he stands before groups in teahouses reciting tales of ancient knights, emperors and villains.

One recent evening at the Rejuvenation Teahouse here, elderly men in blue Mao caps, clutching knobby canes and puffing on curled pipes, leaned forward to catch every word as Xiao’s voice rose and fell with the tempo of a story.

The scene is repeated nightly, seven days a week, at the teahouse.

Transformed at Night

During the day, the 40-year-old Xiao is an ordinary worker, but at night he becomes a character out of China’s past.

He slips on a brown, wide-sleeved gown with a high Mandarin collar, the dress of Chinese intellectuals in pre-Communist days, and takes his place behind a cloth-draped table. With sweeping hand gestures, he builds a fantasy that holds his audience of about 90 men almost motionless for two hours.

Xiao said his pay depends on the attendance, but he normally earns about 7 yuan--$2--a night, about twice the daily wage for an average urban worker.

But he said money isn’t his only motivation.

‘Intensive Study’

“I love telling stories,” he said. “At first, I tried hard to learn from the storytellers of the older generation, and then later I developed my own style through intensive study. I have a repertoire of stories that could last me a month.

“All of the stories are excerpts from ancient historical fictions. They are the same as those of ancient times. Some I learned by heart as a child by listening to storytellers, and some I read in books.”

Most of the stories are about knights who were loyal to an emperor or who befriended the poor and innocent and killed sinister officials, he said. Some expose the dark side of the imperial court and ancient ruling class.

When he began telling stories in the late 1970s, Xiao was one of 700 to 800 folk artists in Chongqing, which was the Nationalist Chinese capital during World War II and was known in the West as Chungking.

Folk Art Encouraged

“I presented many of my stories to the Cultural Bureau and got approved,” he said.

China was emerging from the radical 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, during which traditional Chinese art forms were banned as a remnant of feudal culture. And among the country’s new leaders were fans of traditional folk art who encouraged its revival.

But the number of folk artists in Chongqing has since dwindled to a few dozen, Xiao said.

“Many of them failed to appeal to the audience because of the bad quality of their performance,” he said. “We also have a decreasing audience because of the encroachment of video, television, dances and other kinds of amenities.”

At the Rejuvenation Teahouse, though, the old stories are being passed from one generation to the next the way they have been for centuries.